


when the flood gates open, brace your shores

by VolxdoSioda



Series: FFXV Kink Meme Fills [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Chronic Pain, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Noctis is an Idiot, OT4, TW: suicidal thoughts, kinkmeme fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 06:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16057133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolxdoSioda/pseuds/VolxdoSioda
Summary: C'mon,Noctis tells himself,one last push. You've got this.Narrator:He did not, in fact, have it.(Noctis refuses to listen when his body tells him enough is enough. The bros are not pleased.)





	when the flood gates open, brace your shores

**Author's Note:**

> _Prompt: Don't care who, how or why, I just want Noctis screaming himself hoarse from pain._
> 
> _+for lots of chocobro comfort afterwards_
> 
> TW: Suicidal thoughts.

In the years following his accident, Noctis has learned to come to terms with his injury. He's learned how to sleep to minimize the twinge in his lower back and leg in the morning, how to slide out of bed instead of twisting his back to turn. He's taught himself to sleep on his right side, so he doesn't wake up feeling like Ifrit's clawed his wounds while he slept. 

The walking and running came later. But still, he's learned it. He's gotten it down. Of course that doesn't mean there aren't days where, no matter how carefully he moves or sleeps or shifts, his wounds don't flare up with bone-deep pain that feels like he's a few steps away from his threshold. Because there are. There are days where he wakes up, and there's nothing but a cycle of pain. Where every moment feels like it drags on for hours because all he can feel is agony rippling through is body. 

And then there are the days that start off good, and tumble downhill fast; where something small sends a riptide of pain through his body, and it just gets worse. Those are the worse days, in Noctis' opinion, because he's being led to believe it'll be a good day. At least if he wakes up to pain, he  _knows_ where he stands on the meter, and can judge his threshold accordingly.

But even then, he rarely falters, or stops. He knows it probably drives Ignis around the bend, probably puts Gladio in a sour mood, probably worries Prompto, but a King can't stop for this level of pain. His Dad dealt with this and more for  _years_ \- he refuses to let himself be babied over a little bit of pain. He can handle it. Yeah his leg buckles and his limp makes him look like he's half a second from being on crutches or back in a wheelchair, but he can handle it. It's fine.

(Until it isn't, and Noctis is under the fog, thinking  _please make it stop, gods above I'll do anything just make it stop--_ )

Today has been one of the latter days; he'd woken up feeling better than normal, and they'd been fine as they'd agreed to take on a hunt for a mark that only came when stormy weather was around; with the heavy clouds on the horizon, it was pretty much guaranteed today would be the day to kill it. They'd piled into the Regalia full of Ignis' food, in good spirits, and started out towards the location.

But as the storm had rolled closer, his wounds had begun to twinge. And then throb. And then  _ache_ in a way that Noctis knew meant that his day was about to go downhill fast. 

And so it had. The pain had started as soon as he'd made to get out of the car, though he'd been incredibly careful with even doing that. It didn't matter. It seemed his body was determined to make it his worst day yet. Noctis sucked in a breath, told himself  _hold on, you've got this,_ and made a solemn vow to whine loudly in Ignis' direction as soon as they finished the mark and set up camp.

But he never makes it that far. 

The mark is huge and nasty and utterly disgusting; the ground beneath their feet is wet and slick, muddy in spots and rocky in others. Noctis can't keep himself off the ground forever, and eventually when he comes crashing down, the shock of agony that ripples through his body makes his moves sluggish. He's not quick to get back up, and pays when the thing's tongue lashes out, knocking him onto his bad hip and causing him to choke in a puddle. 

"Quit horsing around!" Gladio bellows at him. In the downpour, he can't see the way Noctis is breathing heavily or sweating, how pale he's become, how he's leaning right to avoid doing anything on his left side. The pain has rippled upwards to such a point that even the skin on the left side of his face feels like it's being scrapped by sandpaper with every little touch. 

 _C'mon, c'mon, get up, you gotta fight, you can't--_ The tongue lashes again, Noctis weakly rolling over to avoid it, slamming his bad hip into the rocks and letting out the smallest whimper. He's fast approaching threshold, and if they don't wrap this up soon he's going to be useless. Well, more useless.

He shoves himself to his feet, bites down, grinds his teeth as he warps and strikes, again and again and  _again--_

The pain hits threshold, and Noctis isn't sure he can breathe, let alone move, but the mark is still standing,  _on its last legs,_ as Gladio is saying, so Noctis grits his teeth, tells himself  _one last push, c'mon, you got this, one more, one more._

He doesn't realize in his shuddering, jerking moves across the battlefield, he's run afoul of an Arba's den. A mother Arba, with a baby nearby. He doesn't realize it as he steps back, unknowingly closer, and turns his head when he thinks he hears something at his back.

Just in time to see her back hooves come at him. They slam into his back - right into the mess of scars - with all the force of a canonball shot true, and he's flying over the mark, slamming into the ground -- something  _crunches_ when he lands.

Someone starts screaming. Whoever it is, they're panicked, terrified, driving themselves hoarse with it. Noctis kind of wants to tell whoever it is to shut up so he can force himself up, get back at the Arba when the dizzying pain stops for half a second, when he's able to move without feeling like he's dying.

There's a hand over his mouth, hands on his shoulders, hands on his hi--

The screaming pitches. Pained, like an animal. Dying? The hands on his hips leave, the screams taper to a moan of pain, and then a whine, and then back to a scream when he's scooped up and moved.

Gods his throat hurts. 

The car seats hurt just as much as the ground does, and Noctis sobs and jerks, trying to escape Gladio pulling him in the back, but the man holds him firm. He can smell blood now,  _his blood,_ and faintly through the haze of agony and blood and broken  _something_ he can feel Gladio shaking. 

He loses time, because with each jostle and jerk of the car, with every vibration from the engine pain shoots through him, and it's like he's being broken all over again, systematically, without mercy. He knows he begs at one point, offers these people  _anything_ if they will just stop the pain. His crown, his kingdom, his people,  _himself, whatever they want--_

When the pain doesn't go away, he heads straight for the suicidal things he's never said out loud.

"Bahamut's ballsack," he hears Gladio say, and then presses Noctis's face into his shirt. He hasn't opened his eyes since he was kicked, and he doesn't think he can, anymore. He's wavering between agony and exhaustion, feeling dizzy and lightheaded even as the pain digs a home in his bones.

Finally, the car jerks to a stop, and Noctis feels himself scooped up again, this time with three pairs of hands on him, and taken somewhere. 

He doesn't know where, only that it's soft and Ignis pours something on him that makes the pain fall back enough for him to breathe, and he realizes the entire time over he's been screaming himself hoarse. His voice is little more than a croak now, and he tapers off into harsh breaths as they do whatever it is they're doing. Gladio's still holding him, and he thinks the clammy hand currently holding his right might be Prompto, but Gods he's so tired. 

The exhaustion hits him, and combined with the blood loss, he's unconscious before long.

 

**_0-0-0-0-0-0-0_ **

 

"--ever want to hear him sound like that again."

Awareness trickles back to him in slow drops, here and there, scattered across his time in the darkness. He's wrapped up, his leg elevated and sharply bound to someone else's - probably to prevent him moving it. They've done it before, back at the City, when he was younger while he slept. Gladio was usually the one beside him, being too big for him to shove off the bed and harm himself. There's three bodies piled around him, one on each side, and then one snugly on top. Something hot is wrapped around his hip and lower back, and it feels like bliss. The rest of him is cold, which points to him quite possibly wearing a lack of clothing. 

He remembers the kick, remembers screaming, remembers the blood. Ignis probably took them to clean - he's the only one out of them who knows how to reliably get blood out of black clothing without turning it white.

His eyes stick when he tries to open them, but eventually he gets them open. "'io?" he murmurs, "'nis? Prom?" His voice slurs. 

"Here."

Ignis is the one in front of him, looking exhausted but alive. Gladio is behind him, and Prompto is the one draped over all of them. He's not wearing anything outside of his boxers, and his leg and lower back have been heavily wrapped. 

"Oh thank the Six you're awake," Prompto breathes. "We thought we lost you, buddy."

"Lost me?" he clears his throat. "Sorry for the scare, then."

"Don't apologize," Gladio rumbles behind him. His hand squeezes Noctis' good hip. "We nearly got you killed, Noct.  _We're_ the ones who need to be sorry."

"What? No, I--the day started off good, okay? I swear I wasn't like that when I woke up."

"The storm." Ignis guesses. "The cold weather has never been kind to you."

"And he couldn't have said that?" Prompto demands. His gaze is frank as he meets Noctis' eyes. "Buddy, I love you, but you can be an idiot sometimes, you know that?"

That gets a weak chuckle out of Noctis. "Didn't seem like a big deal. Besides, it's not so bad--"

"Bullshit," Gladio says. "Noctis, if you could hear yourself back there -- we thought you were  _dying._ "

They all shiver. "I never want to hear that sound again," Ignis murmurs. "It will haunt my dreams after today. Listening to my King howl on the ground as he bleeds out, bone in places where bones should not be."

"Sorry about the clothes."

"Inconsequential, compared to your life." Ignis cups his face, brings their foreheads together. "You scared us."

"Scared myself a little too." It isn't easy to admit, but in the deeper fogs, he's had thoughts of suicide before. Then he thinks of what he'll be leaving behind - of Gladio and Ignis and Prompto, and he can't bring himself to do it. That fight came close to those thoughts. "Did I... say anything weird?"

They're all silent. He wants to imagine the things he's left unsaid for so long remained as such, but he doubts they did. 

"Well," Gladio says in a light voice that belies the subject matter. "You threatened to kill yourself half a dozen creative ways." He's rubbing circles over Noctis' stomach with a hand, a soothing movement for both parties. "Started by saying you were going to take Prompto's gun and blow your brains out and moved out from there."

They're all looking at him, waiting for the denial. But... he owes them the truth. 

"Yeah. I've... had that thought a few times. When it's gotten bad."

"Noct," Prompto says, and his voice is shaking. "You can't... bundle that shit up."

"By all means," Ignis said, and where Prompto's is shaking, his voice is like steel. "If you are in pain,  _say something._ And talk to us, highness, if you reach that place where you can go no further."

Gladio says nothing, but he doesn't have to. Noctis can hear his words from their training days in his head.  _"Who does it help if you push yourself so badly you hit threshold, Noctis? I'm your Shield, I can't help you if I don't know how much pain you're in! Talk to me! We have Elixier, we have Potions, fuck, we can **stop for the day** if we need to! But don't tell yourself you can push on when your body is ready to go out from under you!"_

He bows his head. "I just. Don't want to disappoint you."

Gladio kisses the back of his neck, Prompto his temple, Ignis his nose. "You're only disappointing us if you give up," Gladio says. "And trust me when I say that's the very last thing you've been doing."

"No more of this," Ignis orders, and Noctis thinks  _he'd make a fine king._ "After today, no more, Noctis. Understood?"

"I'm with them, buddy. And the next time you do this, we'll tie you down. And not in the sexy way either."

He chuckles. It's weak and watery, but his friends showing how much they care always does this to him. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. I'll... try to be more vocal."

"Not try," Ignis orders. " _Do._ "

"You're allowed time to breathe," Prompto says, running a hand through his hair. "You don't have to be a King yet. You just need to be Noctis. That's more than enough for us."


End file.
